Improving your picking speed
This is the SINGLE most important lesson for an advanced guitarist to learn.
Hold on just on one second…… do NOT underestimate how important this simple lesson is!! If you learn nothing else from all of these lessons, this is the one thing you need to memorize.
The word for this lesson is metronome, Metronome, METRONOME! Historians say the first one was discovered in the dark ages when a wandering minstrel started shredding out arpeggios on his lute in-time with a woodpecker in a nearby tree, at a break-neck 64th note tempo! But seriously, for those of us who are constantly seeking to improve our speed and accuracy on the guitar, one of these little babies is the way to go.
My top recommendation for metronomes are at the bottom of the page
There are decent metronomes in the $25 range… all the way up to a wooden carved classic model that will nearly cost you a half a week’s pay! What the heck?!
I myself prefer entry level $25 (el cheapo) for the reasons I will mention below.
Some important features to keep in mind when shopping for a metronome are:
- Sound of the click: If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably hear about a million metronome ticks in an average lifetime! And the phone apps drive me nuts with their rinky-dink sounds.
- Volume of click: Make sure you can hear the darn thing, flashing lights alone (to me) are useless.
- High School click: This is only important, if the crowd you run with has deluxe metronomes and you’re suffering from Schroeder envy.
O.K… so now you got yourself a metronome…now what?
To use it effectively you need to create a progress chart to track your weekly activity. Here’s a basic table as an example.
|
Riff Name |
Description |
Date |
Tempo |
| GAMMA – Ready for action | Ronnie intro pull-off riff | 4.13.2016 | 88 BPM 1/4 notes |
| GAMMA – Ready for action | Ronnie intro pull-off riff. Finally at speed of album | 4.20.2016 | 118 BPM 1/4 notes |
Follow these simple steps:
- Master your riffs, runs, or scales at a s-l-o-w, comfortable pace until they are committed to memory.
- Use alternate picking (down \/ up /\ down \/ etc..) for every note you play. No cheating!
- Make sure every note is strong, even and clean, so that when you play the run up to speed, your attack will be accurate and merciless (for shredders ;-).
- After mastering a riff, update the notes on your progress chart (riff name, description, date and tempo) then bump up the speed of the metronome 4 or 5 bpm (beats per minute) and then start all over again with the process from step 1.
- If you start flubbing the notes, bring the tempo speed back down to where you previously were, and start again.
Now I know that this is obvious knowledge that you may have heard before, but here’s the thing…
IT WORKS!
Sure, I knew about metronomes when I first started playing guitar. But until I got serious about using them correctly, I never knew how quickly I could improve in such a short time.
Use whatever material or scales you want to improve upon for your exercises. Or try the TAB example below. Don’t forget to always warm up first before trying anything difficult on guitar (use tab example below). Have fun & Shred on…Tommy
Exercise #1 Chromatic warm-up's e-------------------------1234321---------------------------- B--------------------2345---------5432----------------------- G---------------2345-------------------5432------------------ D----------3456-----------------------------6543------------- A-----4567---------------------------------------7654-------- E-5678------------------------------------------------8765---
Below is my current favorite cheapie (economical) metronome at Amazon. I have one just like it and have been using it for years. It’s sturdy and has a great woodblock sound. Don’t wait any longer to get started using a metronome!